Suddenly and Finally
by MannyZanders
Summary: Sometimes it happens that you fall in love not at once, but at last. Spinelli/Maxie


They fall into a comfortable rhythm, the geek and the Wounded One. To everyone else, they are a strange and incomprehensible pair - the slightly dorky pseudo-brother to a mafia hit man and the incredibly neurotic, spoiled daughter of the town's Police Commissioner.

But to him, she's just Maxie - his Wounded One, his suddenly friend…he'd always thought of her as the Bad Blonde One then one day _suddenly_ they were friends. And to her, he's just Spinelli, her finally friend…she'd always thought of him as the barely tolerable computer nerd, but then one day she realized he wasn't just the guy who'd helped her during a dark time but that she _finally_ had a true friend, one she could count on no matter what.

So there they were, suddenly and finally friends – a friendship that made little sense to outsiders, save for a few. Her cousin Robin, her boss Kate and their friend Sam consisting of the few._ The Commissioner, Sir_ didn't understand - nor particularly like - his step-daughter's attachment to the jumpy, jittery hacker but he loved Maxie and had already lost one daughter, so if not exactly welcoming of said hackers presence in her life, he at least said very little about it.

As for Spinelli's friend Stone Cold, he found Maxie – exhausting, is how he described it to Spinelli one night. She was forever talking, moving, scheming, and snooping in unexpected - and inconvenient – places, but he too said very little about her near daily presence at his penthouse, at his warehouse, at his coffee house. Where Spinelli was, Maxie was very nearly always to follow. Though privately Jason thought Maxie did very little following – in his opinion, Maxie had gained a very loyal lapdog in the quirky hacker. But Spinelli was his friend and Maxie, despite being the Police Commissioner's daughter and a royal pain in the butt – had proved herself to be loyal to Spinelli and willing to keep her mouth shut when it came to Jason's business so her presence was tolerated – barely – by the monosyllabic hit man.

Of them, it is Kate that first notices their _rhythm_, as she calls it. Sam and Robin notice it too, but it is Kate that knows that when Maxie comes breezing in to work every morning, a stumbling and barely awake Spinelli will follow her in by no less than ten minutes carrying coffee for the three of them and leave with a fond smile for Maxie and a shy wave to Kate.

She knows that he'll return five hours later, pull out his laptop and work silently, patiently while he waits for Maxie to finish whatever she's doing so he can escort her to lunch. And she and Maxie count on his prompt arrival every evening as their silent signal that it's nearly time to wrap up for the day.

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It's become routine, his daily visits and while wary at first – Kate finds his devotion to Maxie sweet and secretly hopes that they find their way to a relationship beyond friendship some day. She doesn't say anything to Maxie because, well – she figures it isn't really any of her business. Maxie, although quietly supportive, stays out of her relationship with Sonny so Kate figures it's only fair to do the same for her and Spinelli. But she can't help but think that a couple that can communicate so eloquently, so deeply without words and seemingly without effort, well that's a couple that will probably go the distance. She'd tried explaining it to Sonny once but he'd merely stared at her with a blank expression so she'd never brought it up again but it fascinated her, the relationship between the hacker and the glamour girl.

Kate has never known two people to carry on an entire conversation with barely a word said between them and she has begun to take pride in her slowly developing ability to decipher their "language". She's learned that when Spinelli silently hands Maxie her coffee in the mornings, his furrowed brow is asking if she'd gotten any sleep the night before – an irritated sigh and a careless shrug in return meant _"No. Thoughts of Georgie, of Jesse, of Coop, kept me up all night but don't worry I'm really okay" ,_ a roll of the eyes and a quick smile meant _"Yes you dork – now stop worrying about me, I'm fine."_

There were hundreds of barely perceptible tilts of the head, shoulder shrugs, raised eyebrows and a thousand different smiles that all meant a million different things but translated into one definite truth – they had their own silent language, a rhythm that Kate, Robin and Sam have all come to accept as undeniable part of who Maxie and Spinelli are together.

It's Sam who has the tightest grasp on the different meanings behind Spinelli's never-ending nick-names for Maxie. Her friend has long ceased to be The _Bad Blonde One_ to Spinelli and so when Maxie is melancholy or missing Georgie, or Coop, or Jesse – she is _The Wounded One_, when she is immersed in work thriving on the deadlines, the worry, the frantic pace that is her job with Kate, she is _The Mini-Fashionista_. Rushing home to prepare dinner for Mac or dropping in at the station to make sure he's eaten or taken some time out for himself, then she's _The Devoted Step-Progeny of the Commissioner, Sir_. The closest Maxie gets to her former state of Badness in Spinelli's eyes is _The Naughty Blonde One_ and Sam knows that's only when he's irritated with her. And when he starts referring her to as _The Naughty Blonde One_, there is only ever one reason for it.

Logan Hayes.

It is Robin who knows why Maxie insists on maintaining a friendship with _The Grumpy Guardian of The Unhinged One_, despite that it plainly upsets her friend The Jackal.

Lulu Spencer.

Robin knows that her cousin's hatred of The Fair Lulu has grown beyond Lulu and Dillon's betrayal of Georgie, their feud runs far deeper than Logan Hayes. Spinelli's continued friendship with Lulu hits hard at Maxie's deep-rooted insecurities and fears of never being good enough and hurts her deeply and nearly everyone with the exception of the clueless hacker knows this but to Robin's surprise, Maxie does nothing to push Spinelli to end his friendship with the Spencer girl. But she knows her cousin, and she knows that Logan is merely Maxie's way of putting up a barrier to minimize the pain Maxie is secretly convinced is coming her way when Spinelli inevitably chooses Lulu's friendship over hers.

Kate, Sam and Robin are convinced that this will never happen. Spinelli, though loyal and dedicated to maintaining a friendship with Lulu, is clearly devoted to Maxie. They know even Lulu herself can see that, and they also know that she is clearly not happy with that knowledge. So it is with worry and concern that they keep a close eye on _The Mini-Fashionista_ after Lulu announces her intent to set up the socially challenged hacker on a blind date with one of her friends.

Maxie again becomes _The Wounded Blonde One_ the week following this announcement, and all three women are tempted to smack him, or at the very least subtly point out to the clueless boy that his friends melancholy has nothing to do with a loved one from the past that she's lost, but the one she's afraid she's about to lose. And the though the three are hardly friendly, let alone friends, none is surprised to see the others outside Maxie's door the night of Spinelli's 'date'. It's Kate who brings the Belvedere Vodka, Robin who offers the comforting hugs but it is Sam who throws her hands up in exasperation and yells at Maxie to start acting like _Maxie_ and go get her man already.

They start to worry two hours later when they haven't heard from her yet and wonder if Maxie's liquid courage wore out before she got to Spinelli's. A text message from her to Sam tells them nothing other than she's fine and to go home, so they do.

Kate would like to say she's surprised when she finds Robin and Sam on her doorstep the next morning, but she's not. Instead she silently opens her door for them to enter and the three of them sit and discuss the weather, Robin's pregnancy and Kate's magazine for over an hour. Nothing is said about what they're all really worried about – Maxie . When she breezes in grinning and humming under her breath they return her greeting cautiously and hold back on the questions they're dying to throw out at her. Just when Sam is ready to say _Fuck it_ and start drilling her for answers to what happened the night before, the door swings open again and Spinelli strolls in with a smile so wide it's nearly blinding.

And when he hands Maxie her coffee with a grin and a _"For the naughty one_", the nickname takes on an entirely different meaning and the three women stare slack-jawed as Maxie giggles and blushes –_ blushes!_ - in response. Realizing their worry over their friend is now unfounded, the three women awkwardly stumble over their words and each other to leave the pair to their newly discovered, or at least newly admitted, feelings for each other. It is only as Kate is standing in the elevator with the other two that she realizes she has in fact effectively exiled herself out of her own place but figures she can give the new lovebirds a few hours before marching back in and declaring business as usual. After all, she still has a magazine to run.

Though fairly inseparable before, Maxie and Spinelli become nearly attached at the hip after that night and soon Lulu and Logan fade into the background of both their lives. After awhile it's hard for people to remember a time when it wasn't Maxie and Spinelli together against the world, and their being together becomes less and less an object of confusion and more and more a thing to be envied.

Over time their friends fall in and out of love – Kate marries an Australian businessman, Sam marries and divorces and marries Lucky Spencer, and Robin and Patrick raise their son together though separately, him with his new wife and her with Jason Morgan with whom she's once again living with.

And when, years later Spinelli tells his mentor of his plans one night Jason looks at him like he's crazy – after all this time together, now _suddenly_ he decides to do this? But when Spinelli arrives later that night on Mac's doorstep to seek his permission to ask for Maxie's hand in marriage, Mac just grins and says _"Finally"_.


End file.
